Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP TWO

deepened. Relieved of the alcohol obsession, their lives un-
accountably transformed, they came to believe in a Higher
Power, and most of them began to talk of God."

Consider next the plight of those who once had faith,
but have lost it. There will be those who have drifted into
indifference, those filled with self-sufficiency who have cut
themselves off, those who have become prejudiced against
religion, and those who are downright defiant because God
has failed to fulfill their demands. Can A.A. experience tell
all these they may still find a faith that works?

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost
or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at
all, for they think they have tried faith and found it want-
ing. They have tried the way of faith and the way of no
faith. Since both ways have proved bitterly disappointing,
they have concluded there is no place whatever for them to
go. The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency,
prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formi-
dable for these people than any erected by the unconvinced
agnostic or even the militant atheist. Religion says the ex-
istence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can't be
proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of
God. Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is
that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the
comfort of any conviction at all. He cannot attain in even
a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic,
or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.

Any number of A.A.'s can say to the drifter, "Yes, we
were diverted from our childhood faith, too. The overcon-
fidence of youth was too much for us. Of course, we were